


What Jack Is, And What Jack Isn't

by apiphile



Category: Torchwood
Genre: Backstory, Character Study, Children of Time, M/M, torchwood_house
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-03-09
Updated: 2010-03-09
Packaged: 2017-10-07 20:24:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,027
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/68909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/apiphile/pseuds/apiphile
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jack is a lot of things.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What Jack Is, And What Jack Isn't

Because Jack is a soldier.

He wasn't at first, but that's what he made of himself, the strongest thing he could think of to be, after every soft and kind and homelike thing he'd ever had was tugged away from under him like the shifting of loose sands. On Boeshane they have/had/will have a thousand words for a thousand ways for sand to be sand; one of them was his name, before he joined the Agency.

Jack made himself a soldier because there seemed nothing more unlike sand – yielding, defenceless sand – and nothing in the universe was going to compel him to make himself weak for anyone again. He liked the uniform; he liked the order you couldn't have in a place where the world rewrote itself every time the winds moved; he liked not having to think, for a while, the chance to close everything out of his mind and concentrate on _now_, on _this_, on getting the rest of them out alive.

Over and over, Jack The Soldier got everyone out alive; when Jack's the soldier, he knows how to be Good. He knows what he has to do to make things okay, to make his father proud of him be the hero he knows he isn't; get them out alive, get them all out alive.

It's that simple, just a mantra he can count on his fingers.

It's never that simple.

Because Jack is a con artist.

It was love, of a sort, that really taught him about lying. It wasn't the healthy sort (he sees that now), but it really was a sort (he hates admitting to this), and it was as real and as meaningful as every scar he doesn't have, every bone he's broken and reset.

Love picked him up and taught him about forgetting without guilt; it taught him to forget about guilt and follow the money. It taught him to smile the worst of his smiles, the big bright glassy empty ones that seem so sincere. It taught him that treachery is the better part of valour. It taught him that as long as one person wanted him, everyone else was collateral, a purse, a tool, a means to whatever end he felt like.

It was a sort of love and a sort of shield and a sort of deep-sea diving that taught Jack he wasn't the hero he wanted to be; Jack the greedy and selfish, Jack the amoral and grasping, Jack's dark places fitting around _his_ dark places so perfectly it was as if they'd been made for each other. All he had to do to make everything right for himself was open his mouth and let the world fall out.

It's that simple, as simple as closing his eyes against everything but the lies in his throat.

It's never that simple.

Because Jack is a dog.

How much easier things are when there's someone to give orders, poke him in the back with their elbow, shout _come on come on_, how much easier things are when he's got to prove himself all over again. Jack makes himself if not indispensible then unforgettable; Jack can't be left behind, Jack can't be abandoned, Jack's hanging onto coat tails and shirt-sleeves and anything he can get his fingers around, because he won't be the one who lets go. _Not this time_.

He knows to cling on for dear life and keep moving, and not to let anything distract him – that's what he's learnt, the conman and the soldier – keep your eyes on the prize. Don't let go. And even when he's walking in front, his brain is trotting obediently behind, because it knows hierarchy and it knows betters when it sees them and it knows that the conman is snarling at him he can't find his way home without someone to lead him.

This is the other kind of love, the one that carries slippers and says _yes_, the one that isn't dark or scary at all, the one that knows where it stands and knows what is right; maybe one day he'll even be able to put down the gun. All he has to do is walk in the man's footsteps and everything will be okay.

It's that simple, Jack's collared and leashed and knows his place and he won't be left behind, not ever again –

It's never that simple.

Because Jack is no fucking good at this, and he's pretty sure someone's going to notice sooner or later that he's making it up as he goes along. What happens when that happens, he has no idea, but there are days when he can't stand the expectant looks. He's not a leader, he's not at all sure he knows how to stand still and fight, and he doesn't know he can get everyone out alive when it comes to it.

That's what Jack is.

He's sand, after all, when Ianto's watching him from the other side of the Hub and his mind is too chaotic to find any kind of answer to whatever's crashing in on them, and Jack once again has to pull something out of whatever orifice and pretend he knew what he was doing all along. He's sand, trickling through Ianto's hands that evening and trying not to think, trying not to think about what happens when he fucks it up, _next time_. Trying not to think and knowing that he must, because he's the leader now.

That's what Jack is.

He's rebuilt a family – that's what he learns when he steps back from the Doctor to be all the things he knows he's not; a leader, a guardian, and capable of telling the truth. Jack's not sure how to feel about that, because the con man is telling him to run and the soldier is telling him to get them out alive, and he knows that having a family again, letting himself be sand in Ianto's hands, is contingent on not letting them go.

It's that simple. Don't let go of the thing he's made, and everything will be okay at last.

It's never that simple.

Because Jack is a _brother_, too.


End file.
